10 November 2009
Personal Branding and Why It Sucks
Recently I have been trying to force myself to get back into RSS feeds. Keeping up with my Google Reader is one of my secret, shameful failures. I admit this upfront to get into the spirit of what this post is going to be about.
Anyways, one of the feeds that I’ve recently subscribed to has been all about personal branding. That is, treating your identity as a brand and attempting to control the image associated with your name.
I get personal branding, I do. There is plenty of stuff floating around that drives home the importance of controlling your image (take a look at the Personal Branding Blog and the connected Student Branding Blog). It is important. But also, it sucks. Personal branding sucks. It sucks so bad.
Here’s why.
Personal Branding is Totally Fake
It requires you to censor nearly everything that you do to prevent your ‘weaknesses’ damaging your overall ‘brand’. Yet, social media is about being social. It’s about being genuine and creating connections with other people. Censoring myself in this way makes me feel like I’m attending some rich kids masquerade ball. Sure, everyone is very pretty and TV shows like Gossip Girl sexify it up, but how do I know what the people behind those masks are really like? Did you see Eyes Wide Shut? What was up with that?
Personal Branding is Hard Work
The internet and social media is a part of my life now. Is it even possible to use all of the new networking services and still retain complete control of how I am portrayed?
I thought I was safe putting my Facebook profile on ultra ninja stealth mode, but that doesn’t stop random people identifying me through mutual friends. So what should I do? Start culling friends because I cannot be sure they won’t protect my flawed secret identity?
My ‘Flaws’ Make Me Awesome
Here is the take home message. I am equal parts flawed and awesome. Chances are, you are too. It’s just, for better or worse, the internet has changed the way we network and now it’s a lot harder to compartmentalise your flaws and your awesomeness.
Perhaps in years past it was possible to go to work and see your fellow employees, or your boss, as super heroes capable of saving the day without a hint of weakness. The truth is, though, while these people were superheroes at work, or on the sports field, or wherever, they had a mild-mannered secret identity too.
And that secret identity was flawed. Perhaps your superhero boss didn’t eat right. Or perhaps he or she would attend parties on the weekend and let their hair down. Perhaps they would get stuck in traffic and vent their frustrations loudly in their empty car.
Well, now thanks to the wonders (‘Wonders, Lisa? Or blunders..’) of the computer age, it’s a lot harder to keep these two identities separate. I say, deal with it. I promise you, even though you will find unattractive photos of me on Facebook, I’m still a pretty clever kid. Even though someone occasionally uses Twitter to abuse the public transport system, it doesn’t mean they should be tarnished forever. A person who blogs about how disappointed they are with their below average exam results should be viewed as someone who wants to do better, not as a failure.
Social networking blurs the lines between ‘work identity’ and ‘home identity’ and that is part of what makes it so valuable. It can give us a deeper insight into a person’s life, but you have to be willing to take the good with the bad.
Personal Branding Just Plain ‘Ol Sucks
Personal branding sucks because it encourages the idea that people need to be pristine and perfect to be valuable. But the truth is the complete opposite. The valuable people, in my mind, are the ones who identify their flaws, account for them, and turn up ready to make things better for the people around them.
In my (flawed) opinion, if you’re using social networking to promote a promise that isn’t you, well you’re kind of missing the point.
I should also point out the huge hippocracy in this post, as Ben Blue isn’t actually my real name. I post under this alias to protect my mild mannered secret identity. Baby steps…
Related posts:
- Green Grads Grab #7
- Tech Tips: Google Profile
- List of Helpful Podcasts
- On Being a Recession Graduate
- Green Grads Grab #12
